


this is the moment you stop being the rabbit

by anthonvstrk (theravvenstag)



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Gen, M/M, Mark of Cain AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-19
Updated: 2016-12-19
Packaged: 2018-09-09 21:08:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,085
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8912008
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theravvenstag/pseuds/anthonvstrk
Summary: "Now you are under a curse and driven from the ground, which opened its mouth to receive your brother's blood from your hand You will be a restless wanderer on the earth... if anyone kills Cain, he will suffer vengeance seven times over." 
 In which Neil carries the Mark of Cain and is forced away from anywhere that might be home.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Hey guys, I'm very excited about this fix, not least because I'm writing it quickly. I think I'm finally at the point where I can write the things I want without constantly cringing at myself for taking a day to write a paragraph. That being said there is quite a lot to the au that I want to get down, so it may take a while to flesh out all the details. 
> 
> All you really need to know for know is that Neil is a descendent of Cain and therefore is subject to the "curse" God out on his forefather. Keep in mind that Neil doesn't necessarily know this.
> 
> Anyways, thanks for reading, it really means a lot and I'd love it if you wanted to leave a comment or anything like that. I get absurdly shy sometimes, but I'll try to reply if you do. 
> 
> This work is in beta'd (so if you like to save me from my misery, please be my guest _and_ get a preview of whatever will be posted).

“Stay.” Andrew had told him. _Stay._

The words followed him with every step he took, dragging him back to the tower, back to the foxes. The only power Neil had ever known like that was the power of the Court, beautiful and brutal. Usually it kept him moving fast enough to forget where he was going. Andrew though, Andrew drags him backwards with a ghostly hand around his neck making breathing hard and running impossible. Neil walks instead. His steps fall solidly on the orange dirt, misplacing a cloud of dust with every meter moved, but leaving no footprints. 

He longed for his duffel bag, stuffed unceremoniously into a lonely corner. He’d had to run before, but never without that at least. His shoulders felt heavy with the absence of it, the weight of regret adding to the weary promise of change around his ankles. Everything that was Neil Josten was in that bag and everything the was Nathaniel Weskinski was in a subpar safe beside it. Neil wondered if he could walk himself clean out here, an unholy pilgrimage, the grit from the road slowly scouring him out of existence. Maybe then his luggage would be a little lighter. No ghosts inside them.

Neil stumbled and the memory of Andrew roared in his ears. The thought is nearly enough to make him laugh. Getting Andrew to roar would be like getting a lion to eat a low-fat veggie friendly steak. Getting him to care about Neil would be even harder. _We made a deal,_ he would say, knife pressed against Neil's cheek like a welcome home kiss. The would be rage beneath the blade, violent in that still, silent way he had. In the spaces between shadows at Eden’s Twilight and the slow grinding of teeth beneath a Cheshire grin.

Neil’s foot slipped against the packed earth, his hands reaching out instinctively as he fell, if only to drag himself further away from relative safety.

_We made a deal._

His heart ran like a drugged up rabbit and he saw red, black, red behind his eyelids. His fingers scraped over the dirt, like grave digging backwards, as the miles caught up to him. He was seeing black, red, black, black, blue now and the plane of the desert felt as claustrophobic as the club, pushing him deeper and deeper into the safety of his skin.

Neil thought he could maybe hear a car door and frantic shouting has he rested his head on his half finished grave, but he wasn’t sure. All he knew was the aching of his legs and the terrible echo of Andrew’s voice;

_Stay._

And then silence.

***

Wymack looked down at Neil stormily in the interrogation room.

The police had leant it to them for a ‘private talk’. Obviously the small town detectives were far more familiar with familial disputes than the Foxes brand of dysfunctional. He wondered if he and Wymack looked alike, something in the eyes maybe, something in the way a parent could voice a question like a demand and be denied an answer.

“What were you doing in the desert Neil?”

With some effort Neil kept his eyes up. Not even the prickly feeling of being in a police station, like the sting of alcohol on battered feet, could starve off the exhaustion crowding in the corners of his eyes. He was glad Wymack hadn't come earlier. When they had first bundled him out for the cruiser he could barely swallow the coffee and good intentions being shoved at him like knives in a fist fight. Not for the first time in his life Neil had been left unbalanced by the amount of good will people had in them. He was a little steadier now, on the worse side of the table for being something wrong, and happier for it too. This way his silence could be purposeful.

“What were you doing in the desert Neil?” Wymack looked as if he had used up the last of his good will on the thirty minute drive down to the station. His eyes were red and his shirt was flecked with brown spots that could have been blood but were probably coffee. Neil guessed spending a day organising a funeral did that to you. 

He couldn’t sympathise though. The closest thing he had ever known to a funeral was the desecration of his mother’s body on the edge of the horizon, a pyre made out of metal and rubber and blood. He couldn’t sympathise, but he didn’t blame Wymack for not being able to keep the question out of his questioning. _Are you trying to run?_

“I’m fine.” Neil answered him. It was a mostly-truth anyway. The drumming in his head had slowed to a solemn march, quieted by his chest's greedy anticipation of punishment, and his feet only burned when he stood. “I can hold a racket.”

Wymack nodded reluctantly and Neil was suddenly glad he had a survivor as a coach. Maybe Wymack would be a good father after all. Who knows, Neil didn't, he didn’t have much experience in that area either.

Fathers and funerals, two sides of the same mystery.

Wymack didn’t bother offering a hand as Neil struggled from the criminal’s throne, making it clear the conversation was over. Instead he turned away, giving that same gift of privacy as he had in the court telling him the showers had cubicles, telling him it was okay not to show his scars. For a moment Neil was convinced it wouldn't let him go, after all these years running his feet had led him to this. He supposed there were worst ways to go. Andrew had learnt Exy in prison after all. 

But then he was out and standing, and a much more sinister thought began to push at him.

“Coach,” He called, voice stumbling over the appeal to authority. Wymack was drawn to the emotional slip far quicker than any physical one, his eyes snapping to Neil’s in the reflection to the two-way mirror. Neil flinched, knowing how he looked. “Nobody else noticed did they?” Too young, too stupid, too honest. 

Wymack’s face softened immediately, relaxing from the severity of sympathy into the easy lines of annoyance. "Yeah right," He scoffed. “Nicky was the one who called me kid.”

Neil might not have had much sympathy for Wymack but as they left the station he prayed the older man had enough left for him. Enough to keep him from a knife's edge at least.


End file.
